Picture Summary

Hey folks, long time no see! Well, it's summer time. Time to be outdoors, exploring the wild. With my camera always by my side I took photos here and there. But it was never enough for a whole blog entry and I didn't want to post "Picture of the Day" entries all the time. So, under the cut you will find a looooot of photos of animals and plants. Please read on.

My dear love and I went to Rothenthurm, a place in Switzerland with a huge highmoor. The whole place is a national nature sanctuary and a paradise for birds. Due to the bird breeding season there were closed paths. But there were so many paths, it was easy to find another road. And we heard a cuckoo!

The highmoor is also a paradise for flowers. There were a lot of marsh orchids.

There were a lot of insects, too. Like this little butterfly (Aglais urticae) called "little fox" in the German language.

A snout beetle crossed our way. A little beauty, but I don't like its black cousins on my balcony plants.

I visited often the shores of the lake. These shores are also a nature sanctuary. Three different kinds of iris bloomed there. The prettiest of all was the "Iris sibirica".

I almost ran over this hairy friend. It's the caterpillar of Euthrix potatoria, a moth. It was huge, about 6 or 7cm long.

After a rainy day I almost stepped over this little nest of a little ringed plover! It build its nest very near the path and the river. After a thunderstorm the river washed the nest away :'(
I'm really sorry for that bird, because they don't breed often in Switzerland. I hope it will build a second nest.

As you may know I love the world of ponds! The ring snake pond is now overgrown with reed, so you can barely see anything. So to see a little bit more I'm more often by the big pond complex near the lake now. There are a lot of water frogs.

If you are lucky enough you can find some dragonfly larvae. There was a brown one and a bright green one. I think these are larvae from the Aeshna family. They weren't very careful. If I was a stork or a heron, they would be easy prey.

Watch carefully into the reed now. There you can find empty exuviae (empty covers of dragonfly larvae).

The dragonfly larvae tend to hatch in the morning. They often need a few hours for hatching. Found a fresh hatched Libellula quadrimaculata. It's always so interesting! Too bad I had not enough time to watch the whole scene.

This bad photo shows you the tiny head of a baby ring snake. It's shedding.
As I saw it in the pond I thought it was a baby frog but after looking on the photos on the PC I was proven wrong! That little beast... ;)

Our shores are very popular. Since June we have a pair of Nile geese. They look nice, but hey, you don't belong here! ;)

The song of the song thrush is very lovely, like the bird itself.

Amber snail. You can find them near waters.

Knapweed.

Skipper.

Baby water fowl is very pretty and cute. Saw the first time the baby of a dabchick. It was so tiny! <3

Summer isn't over, so I hope for a lot more good photos :)